Peter Peterson

Peter Peterson (Peter G. Peterson) is a controversial Wall Street billionaire and former Nixon appointee who uses his wealth to underwrite PR campaigns against Social Security and other social safety net programs, hyping concerns about the federal deficit (although not targeting for budget cuts substantial military spending or other spending that benefits corporations).

He is the Chairman and Co-Founder of the Blackstone Group and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. According to Forbes, Inc., Peterson has a personal net worth of nearly $2 billion, and he is ranked the 182nd richest person in the U.S. and 488th richest person in the world, as of 2010.

He is the former Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the founding Chairman of the Institute for International Economics (IIE), and the founding President of the Concord Coalition. He is also the former chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers (1973-1977) and its successor firm, Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb (1977-1984). Before Lehman, he worked briefly in the administration of President Richard M. Nixon, as Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs (1971) and as Secretary of Commerce (1972). He also served as a chairman of Nixon's National Commission on Productivity and as the U.S. Chairman of the "U.S.-Soviet Commercial Commission." Before that, from 1963-1971, he was chairman/CEO of the Bell and Howell Corporation.

OweNo
On Nov. 9, 2010, Peterson launched OweNo, an ad campaign to convince America that reducing the the federal budget deficit should be the nation's top priority.

This ad campaign deploys a website, http://www.oweno.com/, and TV ads, as well as other tactics. Its mission statement reads: "OweNo is a national public awareness campaign whose mission is to educate Americans about the causes and consequences of the projected growth in federal debt levels and engage them in a national movement to address these important fiscal challenges. America faces a growing crisis — our $13.6 trillion federal debt is expected to grow to astonishing levels in future years, threatening the economic health of our nation, and particularly our nation’s most vulnerable citizens and the next generation who will inherit our debt. But if we act now to put together a plan for our fiscal future – and if we work together across party lines to implement it – we can start to fix the problem, live within our means and create a better nation for our kids. The American people have the power to make a difference.  That’s why the Peter G. Peterson Foundation launched OweNo, a nationwide public awareness campaign. Through the campaign, we seek to educate Americans about the consequences of our soaring debt and deficits and build consensus among concerned citizens of all political persuasions on the need for a plan that embodies sensible solutions. And, most importantly, we will engage people across the country in a movement for change, empowering them with the information to make a difference by calling on Washington to put a plan in place that addresses our growing fiscal challenges."

Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform and the Obama National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform: Two in the Same?
In November 2010, the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform issued a report called "Getting Back in the Black" $880,000 of the funding behind the commission came from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a Foundation discussed at more length below, as well as from the New America Foundation's Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which receives large swaths of money from the Peterson Foundation via not only the Institute for the Advanced Policy Solutions at Emory University, according to a list compiled by Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher, but also straight from the Peterson Foundation itself, according to the Foundation's 2009 Internal Revenue Service 990 form.

The prelude to the final product, the Obama-lead and taxpayer-funded National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform report, was a report titled "Red Ink Rising: A Call to Action to Stem the Mounting Federal Debt," written by the Peterson-Pew Commission. In that report "defense spending" is mentioned but a single time in the report under "discretionary spending," and only in passing. The section states, speaking of discretionary spending, "Over the last decade, however, it has grown at roughly the same pace as mandatory spending. While the increase can be partly attributed to defense spending, even domestic spending grew at 6.3 percent, faster than the 5.1 percent average for the economy over that time period."

The Commission, says its website, "[was] charged with identifying policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run. Specifically, the Commission shall propose recommendations designed to balance the budget...by 2015. In addition, the Commission shall propose recommendations that meaningfully improve the long-run fiscal outlook, including changes to address the growth of entitlement spending and the gap between the projected revenues and expenditures of the Federal Government." The Commission was molded into being via an Obama-signed Executive Order on Feb. 18, 2010.

Smoking Guns: The Obama Administration Deficit Commission and Peter Peterson Nexus
The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Reform was initiated by President Barack Obama and parallels the Clinton-lead Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform of 1994. It strongly mirrors the 1994 charge to cut "entitlement" spending (spending that aids individual citizens) as the way to cut the deficit, rather than other kinds of spending that benefits corporations.

The Commission not only has many of the same players involved in the Bill Clinton-initiated 1994 effort to dismantle so-called "entitlement spending," but more significantly, it is rife with those who were involved with the Peterson Foundation-funded America Speaks town halls. This includes the likes of Paul Ryan, Judd Gregg, and Kent Conrad, all of whom, not surprisingly, also partook in the Peter G. Foundation-lead April 2010 "Fiscal Summit," also known as America’s Crisis and A Way Forward."  This summit also included names like Robert E. Rubin, Bill Clinton, then Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag (who now works for Citigroup), Alan Greenspan, and David M. Walker on its roster.

At the launch of the Obama Commission it was even announced that Commission would be "partnering with outside groups," such as the Peter G. Foundation's America Speaks initiative. Of course, to those familiar with the players involved in America Speaks and the 2010 Fiscal Summit, partnering is not an apt turn, for many of those involved wore three hats, one for America Speaks, one for the Fiscal Summit, and the third for the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Reform. The American Prospect's Mark Schmitt writes, "...[I]n the complicated relationship here between a private foundation, built on the wealth of a single individual, and a public, government effort[,] [t]he two are co-piloting what looks from the outside like a joint project, with the privately funded project convening meetings that involve the same people and producing vast amounts of research and advocacy that reinforce the fiscal-crisis message and inform the commission. The Peterson Foundation was the primary advocate for the establishment of the public commission, was aggressive about its structure and composition, and now is running parallel to it and nudging it in what it sees as the right direction.

Furthermore, the Washington Post's Dan Eggen, in a Nov. 10, 2010 story titled "Many deficit commission staffers paid by outside groups," revealed that two members of the Obama Commission worked for Peterson-funded organizations. One of them was Ed Lorezen, who currently serves as the Senior Policy Advisor to the CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, and formerly served as the Concord Coalition's policy director from 2005-2007. The other was Marc Goldwein, whose salaray was paid for the Peterson-funded Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. He is a Senior Policy Analyst at the New America Foundation, an organization that also took part of the aforementioned Peterson-Pew Commission, whose conclusions about how to cut the deficit strongly mirrored those of the Obama-lead Commission.

In a Nov. 11, 2010 appearance on Democracy Now!, Robert Kuttner had this to say about the Commission: "We’re in a prolonged recession that bears more resemblance really to a depression. And you cannot get out of a depression by austerity. The idea that you should have an arbitrary set of cuts in the deficit at a time when you need more public spending is totally perverse. It’s the economics of Herbert Hoover. It’s the politics of the Republican right. And it’s one more indication of the capture of the Obama administration by Wall Street. I mean, Erskine B. Bowles gets over $300,000 a year for attending a few meetings of Morgan Stanley, the investment bank, on whose board he sits, so he gets more money in board fees than 99 percent of Americans earn. And you’ve got three privately funded commissions by the Peterson Foundation, Pete Peterson, proposing the same stuff. It’s intended to create a drumbeat to carry out a wish list that has long been the goal of fiscal conservatives, that has nothing to do with this crisis. Social Security is in surplus for the next 27 years. So, the idea that you can somehow get the budget closer to balance by cutting Social Security is perverse. It’s politically insane. And if the President had the kind of spine that we hoped he had when we elected him, he would be saying, 'No way are we going to balance the budget on the backs of working people.' Instead, I think the risk is that the President is going to embrace some version of this."

On Dec. 1, 2010, in the aftermath of six lengthy meetings of the 18-person Commission, a controversial report titled "The Moment of Truth" was released to the general public with many of the suggested austerity measures strongly resembling those suggested in the Peterson-lead America Speaks town hall meetings, the Peterson-funded National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, as well as those positions that Peterson has pushed for throughout his life. These include raising the retirement age for Social Security to 69 by the year 2075, decreasing the cost of living benefits for Social Security recipients, imposing new limits on Medicare health insurance programs, and ending several middle-class tax breaks, the elimination of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the capping of jury awards in malpractice cases, and a major reduction in corporate income taxes.

Speaking about the report's deficit-cutting proposals, the AFL-CIO's Richard L. Trumka said "With this report the Deficit Commission once again tells working Americans to 'Drop Dead.' No proposal on fiscal issues is serious that leaves the Bush tax cuts for the rich in place while raising taxes on the middle class and slashing Social Security and Medicare." On Dec. 3, 2010, the Commission's 18 members voted on whether or not the Commission's proposals should be brought to the House of Representatives floor for a vote. 14 up votes were necessary to make this happen, but this failed to take place, thus the Commission's recommendations were shot down for the time being. Despite the vote’s outcome, the panel’s recommendations could still be incorporated into Obama’s budget plan early in 2011.

AmericaSpeaks
In July 2010, AmericaSpeaks, a group heavily funded by the Peter Peterson Foundation, found itself in the midst of a controversy surrounding its "Town Halls for the 21st Century," in which numerous speakers, including Paul Ryan, Ben Bernanke, the Brookings Institution's Alice Rivkin, the former U.S. Comptroller General and now head of the Peterson Foundation David M. Walker (a man who has called for a return to "debtors' prison) ; and AmericaSpeaks Founder and Director, Carolyn Lukensmeyer, among others, took.  David Walker, for one, is on record saying "Social Security [is] a 'So-Called Trust Fund' 'Which You Can't Trust' and is 'Not Funded'" America Speaks claims to be "politically neutral" and claims "not to take a stand on policy issues."

Massive austerity measures were proposed by many of the speakers, but the people at the meetings, when polled at the end of the events still generally opposed to such measures being taken.

These measures included assaults on social security, as well as on medicare and medicaid. The Campaign for America's Future's Roger Hickey, reporting on the measures proposed at the town hall meetings for Talking Points Memo, explained that with regards to Social Security "America Speaks gave participants no explanation of the fact that Social Security has its own source of funding, and thus does not contribute a dime to the deficit. Americans actually have been paying extra payroll taxes to create a trust fund that will make sure full benefits can be paid for decades into the future - and thus there is no rational reason to cut Social Security benefits (or raise the retirement age) in order to reduce the Federal deficit. But you wouldn't know that from the America Speaks materials or explanations. The Social Security program is simply presented as another big spending program and participants were presented with various ways to cut benefits."

In discussing medicare and medicaid, he wrote that America Speaks "background materials actually did acknowledge that the rising budgetary costs of Medicare and Medicaid are driven by the fact that our whole health care system is broken - and costing both the private sector and government programs much more per person than in countries that have much better health outcomes. They even acknowledged that thoroughgoing reform - like single-payer health care system - is the only way to control those rising costs. However, when it came to options the participants were allowed to vote on, they were all variations on how much people wanted to cut Medicare and Medicaid benefits. At this point in the proceedings, the America Speaks founder and President, Carolyn Lukensmeyer had to acknowledge a rebellion in the ranks. People were demanding to have the option of voting for 'single-payer' reform instead of cutting Medicare and Medicaid, and when she announced a complicated process of writing in that alternative, a roar of approval went up from the crowd in several locations. Their press release doesn't report how many people chose this difficult to select option, but the organization clearly had had to scramble to quell a revolt by participants."

The Wall Street Journal's Thomas Frank, describing the results of the town hall meetings, had this to say: "The event took place...with thousands of citizens meeting in different cities. They duly absorbed a booklet alerting them to the danger of deficits. They deliberated. And then something funny happened on the way to the consensus. According to a preliminary compilation of results, participants supported 'an extra 5% tax' on incomes of greater than $1 million per year (by 68%) and an increase in the corporate income tax rate (59%). They thought a 'carbon tax' was a good idea (64%) as well as a "securities transactions tax" (61%). On Social Security, austerity was nowhere in sight as 85% backed raising the limit on taxable income, and only a miserable 27% thought that we should 'create personal savings accounts.' Majorities favored cutting defense spending and expressed support for further recovery measures even if they increase the deficit."

The American Prospect's co-founder and co-editor, Robert Kuttner, writing in the Huffington Post, said, "...[T]hese surprisingly progressive conclusions came, despite the fact that the exercise was heavily funded by the nation's most powerful propaganda organization (the Peterson Foundation) that works to frighten Americans into believing that Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting the country!...The people are often ahead of the leaders and the pundits. If the administration paid attention to where public opinion really is, we'd be hearing a lot more about jobs and a lot less about deficits."

In fiscal year 2010 the Peterson Foundation, discussed more below, doled out some $2,337,470 to America Speaks, with $2,027,470 of that going straight to the "town hall meetings" fronted by America Speaks but paid for in that large sum by the Foundation. The Foundation has given $2,387,470 since 2009.

A solid discussion of the proposals by the speakers, the decisions invoked by the attendees of the meetings, as well as a debunking of the misleading press release disseminated by America Speaks was produced by a citizen-attendee, and can be seen here on her blog: http://bestpossiblelife.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/america-speaks-let-the-true-message-be-heard/. Another steller overview comes from Firedoglake's David Dayen, who attended and blogged about a Los Angeles-area town hall; it can be read here: http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/06/26/america-speaks-in-la-they-want-economic-recovery-no-social-security-cuts/. The best overview, though, was written by Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith, which can be accessed here: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/07/backfire-at-america-speaks-propaganda-campaign-vs-social-security-and-medicare.html.

Fiscal Times
The "Fiscal Times" was created and is funded by Peterson. It describes itself as an "independent digital news publication that reports on fiscal, budgetary, healthcare and international economics issues." Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, however, reports that the Fiscal Times is really a propaganda outlet designed by Peterson to advance his political and social agenda. For more information on this publication, see the link for more information: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fiscal_Times

I.O.U.S.A.
Funded by the Peter Peterson Foundation and the Concord Coalition, I.O.U.S.A. is a 2008 documentary film directed by Patrick Creadon that competed in the pool for best documentary in the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

It was broadcast nationally on CNN in Jan. 2009. It includes interviews with Warren Buffett, Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin, Alice M. Rivlin, Peterson himself, David M. Walker, and Steve Forbes.

Critical of the film's message, the Center for Economic and Policy Research's Dean Baker states, "This film should be viewed as part of a larger effort to dismantle Social Security and Medicare, the country's core safety net programs. The reality is that our budget is essentially fine, it is our health care system that is out of control. But fixing health care would require going after the drug companies, the insurance companies, and highly paid medical specialists. But those folks are all powerful, so the IOUSA crew went after old people instead."

CEPR has created a minute-by-minute guide to debunk the film's claims, which can be seen here: http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/IOUSA_viewer_guide_2008_10.pdf. They also compiled a report titled "IOUSA Not OK: An Analysis of the Deficit Disaster Story in the Film IOUSA," which can be seen here: http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/IOUSA%20Not%20OK.pdf.

Budgetball
According to the website, "Budgetball is an active sport of quick passes, tough defense, and bold comebacks designed to increase awareness of the national debt and reward strategic thinking and collaborative problem-solving around the issues of fiscal responsibility." In reality, "Budgetball" is just another front group, paid for via a grant by the Peterson Foundation that is meant to entice average citizens into thinking that in order to balance the budget, austerity measures must be taken, including cutting social security and medicare. In order to make itself viral, the masterminds behind Budgetball created a YouTube page and a Facebook account, as well.

"Hugh Jidette"
In a play of words, the producers of I.O.U.S.A. crafted a character named "Hugh Jidette," a pun based on the words "Huge Debt," meant to poke fun at the U.S.'s skyrocketing deficit. Jidette, so the story goes, is a man running for president on a platform of abolishing the federal deficit. Writing about Jidette, Dean Baker states, "...Mr. Jidette, [a] manufactured character[,] is just one part of Peter Peterson's billion-dollar campaign to undermine Social Security and Medicare; Jidette is the culmination of a three-decade-long effort by the wealthy Wall Street investment banker...This disingenuous campaign is an effort to scare tens of millions of voters into giving up the Social Security and Medicare benefits that they have worked for and depend upon, so that the wealthy can have even more money. And since the wealthy are the ones financing the debate and the politicians' campaigns, the smart money is betting on them right now."

Opposition to 1994 Clinton Health Care Bill and "Entitlements" Generally
Peterson has, throughout his career, been an avid supporter of cuts to the deficit, which, for him, primarily translates into cuts to "entitlement spending."

This includes opposition to health care reform of any sort, as he was a firm opponent of the Bill Clinton health care plan of 1993 Even though in strong opposition to "entitlement spending" generally, Clinton still named "Peterson as one of his ten appointments to the newly formed Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform." This Commission was created via an Executive Order by then President Clinton.

Self-Proclaimed "Deficit Hawk"
Peterson champions himself a deficit hawk, but critics say he generally targets things such as social security first and foremost, and not, for example defense spending. William Greider of The Nation, for example, is particularly critical of Peterson, saying that "Social Security...[and] Medicare and Medicaid...are Pete Peterson's favorite targets. He has flogged Social Security as a blight on our future for at least twenty years. He is a nut on the subject. His 'facts' are wildly distorted or simply not true. Never mind, the establishment press portrays him as a disinterested statesman."

The lead sentence of a June 23, 1994 article by The American Prospect's Robert S. McIntyre, also director of Citizens for Tax Justice, sums up Peterson, stating, "Peter G. Peterson, as he cheerfully admits, is not a member of the middle class. He's a rich Republican Wall Street investment banker. But in his crusade against deficits and entitlements, he adroitly poses as a champion of the middle class. Given his circumstances, it's not entirely surprising that Peterson is an outspoken opponent of the federal government's two most progressive programs: the graduated income tax and Social Security. What is odd is that his pose as a friend of the common American succeeds; that he publishes in liberal journals like the Atlantic and the New York Review; and that he enjoys a largely uncritical press. [B]ecause Peterson cloaks his goals in the rhetoric of progressivity, the press has fawned over him. The misleading notions that entitlements are running up the deficit, stealing from future generations, and maintaining the elderly in affluence while young people suffer, have become received wisdom for many. Peterson's bottom line is that the middle class gets too much from government and pays too little for it, while corporations and the rich deserve a break. Curiously, that's not how he sells his program."

Speaking of Peterson and his followers, the Huffington Post's Dan Froomkin writes, "Listen to them and they will tell you how troubled -- how very, profoundly troubled -- they are by the nation's rising debt and dangerous fiscal path. They will tell you very self-righteously how you should be troubled, too. And they will tell you that, fortunately, they know -- in fact, 'everybody knows' -- what is best for all of us. And yet, the illusion of beneficence shatters the minute they get into the details. Because beneath their moving platitudes, the only concrete deficit-reducing proposal that they all agree on involves cutting Social Security payouts, in part by raising the retirement age...There is certainly no consensus on the need to slash our bloated defense budget. No, their only fully developed policy proposal -- one to which they adhere to with nearly religious devotion --is that America's most successful social program needs to be scaled back so that it provides fewer people less money over a shorter period of time."

Effects of His Efforts to Undermine Faith in Social Security
In a short blog post written on July 20, 2010, economist Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, poses the question of whether the American public is actually opposed to social security benefits, based on the results of a USA Today/Gallup poll released that day, or if the results were heavily influenced by the millions of dollars Peterson was spending to influence the public debate on the federal deficit. Baker blogged, "While the recession could explain the loss of confidence in Social Security, it is also possible that the huge public relations campaign by Peter Peterson and others has played a role. Peterson, a Wall Street investment banker, has pledged $1 billion to a foundation that has cutting Social Security and Medicare as its major goals. He has spoken widely around the country telling people that Social Security is going broke and that it has no trust fund. He has enlisted prominent political figures, including former President Bill Clinton in this effort...It is possible that these public relations efforts have had their intended effect of undermining confidence in the Social Security. The article should have at least noted this possibility."

His Foundation
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation was formed in 2008. According to its tax filing, that year it doled out $12,307,671 dollars in various right-wing groups. Some of the most prominent are the following:


 * Committee for Economic Development: $1,000,000
 * Center for the Study of the President and Congress: $700,000
 * Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: $880,000
 * AmericaSpeaks: $50,000
 * Concord Coalition: $1,500,000
 * Institute for Advanced Policy Solutions at Emory University: $600,000
 * Nuclear Threat Initiative: $3,000,000
 * Peterson Institute for International Economics: $150,000

A complete list, compiled by Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher can be seen here: http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/05/25/where-pete-peterson-spends-his-money-2008-grants/.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, has been highly critical of the Peterson Foundation, stating that it uses "jingoism" in it solutions to cut the deficit and that Americans' medicare and social security is under assault at the hands of the Peterson Foundation.

In fiscal year 2010 the Peterson Foundation doled out some $2,337,470 to America Speaks, with $2,027,470 of that going straight to the "town hall meetings" fronted by America Speaks but paid for in that large sum by the Foundation.

Current, as of 2010
Peterson serves as Co-Chair of the Conference Board Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprises.

He also serves on the boards of directors at Sirius Satellite Radio.

Peterson is Trustee at the Committee for Economic Development, the Japan Society, and at the Museum of Modern Art, and is a Director of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Public Agenda Foundation, and for The Nixon Center.

Other roles noted in his bio from the Concord Coalition:


 * Advisory Board, Common Good
 * Advisory Board, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis
 * Director, World Trade Center Memorial Foundation
 * Life Director, Japan Society
 * Member, Independent Commission on International Development Issues

Former, prior to 2010
He formerly served on the boards of the Sony Corporation, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M), General Foods Corporation, RCA, The Continental Group, and Cities Service.

Recipient of "Honorary Degrees"
He is the recipient of Honorary Ph.D. degrees from Colgate University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Northwestern University, the University of Rochester (NY), and Southampton College of Long Island University.

Articles

 * Peter G. Peterson, "Riding for a Fall", Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004.

Books

 * "Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It", Farrar, Straus and Giroux, July 14, 2004, ISBN 0374252874
 * "Gray Dawn: How the Coming Age Wave Will Transform America - and the World", Random House, 1999, ISBN 0812931955
 * "Will America Grow Up Before It Grows Old?", Random House, 1996, ISBN 0679452567
 * "Facing Up: How to Rescue the Economy from Crushing Debt and Restore the American Dream", Simon & Schuster, November 8, 1993, ISBN 0671796429

Articles about Peterson

 * "Peter Peterson's Budget Ball." Dean Baker. TruthOut.org. Jan. 24, 2011.
 * "Hugh Jidette and Hugh Janus Go to Washington" Dean Baker. TruthOut.org. Jan. 3, 2010.
 * "Matthews Show Panel with Peter Peterson and Paul Krugman from Dec. 14, 2010"
 * Holly Yeager. Columbia Journalism Review.  "The Peterson Dilemma: A funded fellow wrestles with a funder’s influence" Aug. 3, 2010.
 * Max Berley and Brian Faler. Business Week. "Spending Big to Stop Big Spending: A billionaire's anti-deficit crusade rankles some Democrats" July 1, 2010.
 * Dan Froomkin. "Deficit Commisson's Most Realistic Goal: Scaring The Hell Out Of Americans" Huffington Post. May 28, 2010
 * Baker, Dean. Center for Economic and Policy Research. "Peter Peterson Wants to Cut Social Security" May 11, 2010.
 * Foser, Jamison. Media Matters for America.  "The question reporters still won't ask Pete Peterson."  Jan. 5, 2010.
 * "The Solution to the Budget Deficit" Baker, Dean. Center for Policy Research. Feb. 23, 2009.
 * "The Peter G. Peterson Crew Is Coming After Your Social Security and Medicare." Baker, Dean. Center for Economic and Policy Research. February 23, 2009.
 * "Peter Peterson's Bad Economics" Baker, Dean. Center for Economic and Policy Research. October 20, 2008.
 * The Nation Cover Story, titled, "The Man Who Wants to Steal Your Social Security", from March 2, 2009
 * John L. Hess, A Crusader in Clover: Pete Peterson, Enemy of Social Security, Counts Journalists as Friends, Extra!, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, March/April 1997.
 * "Conversation with a Conservative: Peter G. Peterson", Mother Jones, October 26, 2004. ("The Commerce Secretary in the Nixon administration explains that the Republican Party "has lost its moorings" in recent years.)
 * Scott Sherman, Kissinger's Shadow Over the Council on Foreign Relations, The Nation, December 27, 2004 (print edition), Dec. 6, 2004 (electronic version). Article discusses Peterson's relation to CFR and Kissinger.
 * Dean Baker, "Santa Claus Comes to Wall Street", truthout, December 27, 2007.
 * James Ridgeway, "Pete Peterson's Anti-Entitlement Juggernaut Gets Fueled Up by Obama"
 * Robert S. McIntyre. The American Prospect.  June 23, 1994. "The False Messiah]"

Select videos

 * "Peter Peterson Calls Bowles, Simpson `American Heroes'"
 * "Peterson on Kissinger"